Anybody who saw the trailer knew that the third edition of Marvel’s favorite poster boy’s escapades was going to have a darker, grittier feel to it, a la Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. It seemed like it was going to be a more serious take – a coming of age for Tony Stark, if you will. Well, to everyone who thought that: you were wrong. While this installment is darker than its predecessors, it is in no way the gritty, tenacious movie that was depicted in the trailers. In fact, Shane Black has managed to find the line between Dark Knight serious and the allure from Iron Man’s first two outings that keeps fans firmly rooted in his capable red-and-gold hand, making this one hell of an entertainer.

Hot off the heels of Joss Whedon’s uber-successful The Avengers, Marvel kicks off its Phase II – which will see Thor later this year, Captain America (2014), Avengers 2 in May 2015 and Guardians of the Galaxy squeezed somewhere in the middle – with the man that started it all.

In the wake of the events in New York, Tony Stark (RDJ) is not the cocky, smug, narcissistic guy we know and love. After saving the world from Loki and his alien army, Stark turns into an obsessive-compulsive workaholic insomniac who suffers panic attacks at the mere mention of the happenings in New York. However, things take a turn for the worse, when the leader of the terrorist group The Ten Rings, The Mandarin (Kingsley), takes to live television to claim credit for the various explosions around America, one of which catches Stark’s bodyguard and chauffeur Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau). This makes things personal. It doesn’t help when Stark’s past catches up with him in the form of a super soldier serum (Extremis) created by mad-scientist-turned-entrepreneur Aldrich Killian (Pearce) and botanist/one night stand Maya Hansen (Hall) . Add to that, War Machine (Cheadle) switching over to become a government toy called Iron Patriot and you know things are only bound for more complication. Following an all-out attack on his home in Malibu, Stark begins his journey from scratch, without his gadgets, toys and lady love Pepper Potts (Paltrow). However, he does get a hand from tech-savvy Harley(Ty Simpkins) and Jarvis (voiced by Paul Bettany).

Character performances are decent right down to the rent-a-thugs, with Downey, Kingsley and Pearce stealing the show. Downey, for obvious reasons – there’s really no one that can play cool the way he does – Pearce for being eerily dangerous and unstable in his Extremis form, and Kingsley for nailing his Bin Laden-esque role to perfection.

Like every superhero flick, Iron Man 3 has its share of inconsistent, cheesy and frustrating moments, but like many Marvel movies now, it manages to skip away from those moments with relative ease. The movie is going to be one of those things that you really love or really hate; though with Shane Black’s tantalizing one-liners there’s bound to be more of the former than the latter.

However, those who are ardent fans of the original comic book will be thoroughly disappointed by the portrayal of the super-villains. But these would comprise a small sliver of movie goers, we’d imagine. Anyone who hasn’t seen an Iron Man comic, let alone read one, can expect to be thoroughly entertained. D.C. may have introduced the concept of “theatricality and deception” to us, but it is perfectly and seamlessly depicted by Marvel. You’ll get it when you watch the movie. If that line was a potential spoiler for you, then in the words of Tony Stark himself, “Don’t be a pussy about it.”

P.S. There’s bonus footage after the long, long credits. So don’t be in a hurry to skedaddle from the theater.